DMSE’s Jacqueline Prawira wins Barry Goldwater Scholarship

Jacqueline Prawira, a senior in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), has been awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for the 2025-2026 school year. She is one of four MIT students to receive the prestigious honor, and one of 441 scholars selected nationwide from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants.  

Established by Congress in 1986, the Barry Goldwater Scholarship supports undergraduate students pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. Named for the late Senator Barry Goldwater, the scholarship provides up to $7,500 per scholar to help pay college tuition and fees. 

Prawira learned she had won the scholarship while studying abroad at Oxford University.  

“I was working elbow deep in a glove box, so I couldn’t access my phone or any of my other devices,” she recalled. “But my watch kept pinging, and I was like, ‘What is going on?’”  

When she left the lab a few hours later, she found a flood of messages—from fellow MIT Goldwater winners she befriended, and from family. “They were like, ‘Look, you got it!’ And I was the one that completely missed the initial notice,” she laughed. “But I was elated.” 

MIT’s other Goldwater Scholars are all seniors—a mechanical engineering and electrical engineering major Avani Ahuja, chemistry major Julianna Lian, and chemistry and biology major Alex Tang. 

Greener cement—and beyond 

For Prawira, the scholarship was more than a happy surprise—it was a moment of reflection. She began research within a month of arriving at MIT, through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, and has worked continuously ever since. 

“Because I’ve been doing extensive wet lab research since the start of my undergrad, I meticulously apply myself in every task—small or big,” she said. “This feels incredibly validating, knowing that my contributions have merit and could even be the keystone of any future discovery.”    

Her work has indeed been significant. In the lab of Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, Prawira—alongside her direct supervisors, researchers Camden Hunt and Benjamin Mowbray—co-invented a process called silicate subtraction, which enables the production of low- to zero-carbon cement.  

Traditional cement making is highly energy-intensive, requiring fossil-fueled kilns to heat limestone and silica-rich materials like sand or clay to around 1,500 degrees Celsius, releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide. 

The new method instead chemically treats silicate materials to make them reactive—meaning they can form the key compounds needed to make cement—at much lower temperatures, drastically cutting emissions.   

“It was designed to significantly reduce the energy footprint of cement production by minimizing the amount of energy you need to heat up the reaction to get it to form cement,” Prawira said. 

She and her colleagues in the Chiang lab also expanded the silicate subtraction process to enable zero-waste lithium extraction. Their method recovers lithium salts for battery manufacturing while eliminating the toxic waste typically produced by conventional extraction. 

“We’re helping with the electrification of industry by increasing our effective supply of lithium globally and also reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing lithium batteries,” she said. 

The patented process is now being commercialized through Rock Zero, a mineral extraction startup co-founded by Hunt and Mowbray and affiliated with MIT’s The Engine, the Institute’s incubator for science-based ventures. Prawira has worked at Rock Zero and plans to return after her semester abroad. 

Development of the process took place under Chiang’s Center for Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry (CEDI), one of five flagship projects of MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges initiative. 

“Jacqueline was the very first student to join CEDI, even before graduate students joined the project,” Chiang said. 

Early roots in sustainability

Prawira’s passion for sustainability runs deep. It began with a book her mother brought home when she was in fourth grade: a textbook called Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science by Tom Garrison.  

The author’s love for the ocean struck a chord—it was a novel and fascinating topic for Prawira, who grew up in Mountain House, California, in the agricultural Central Valley region, a two-hour drive from the Pacific.  

“That sparked my initial interest in the planet by starting with oceanography,” she said.  

From there, she joined Science Olympiad, a team-based STEM competition, gravitating toward earth science events such as geology and meteorology. She also spent nine years competing in science fairs, winning in national and international competitions with inventions focused on sustainable materials.  

Over time, she found herself drawn to materials science after recognizing that nature operates as a closed-loop system—from decomposing matter enriching the soil to the cycling of water, every material on the planet is reused and repurposed indefinitely.  

“The root of our environmental issues is waste and pollution piling up where they shouldn’t be,” she said. “Nature has been perfecting the art of circularity—it already reuses everything. That’s a powerful blueprint for sustainability—and I think it demonstrates how our innovations should strive to minimize the strain on our planet.”